


You Will Be My Ain True Love

by Starofwinter



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of battle, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Mentions of Myth & Folklore, Not Really Character Death, Reunions, Superstition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 12:19:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17425769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starofwinter/pseuds/Starofwinter
Summary: You'll walk unscathed through musket fireNo ploughman's blade will cut thee downNo cutlass wound will mark thy faceAnd you will be my ain true loveAnd you will be my ain true love





	You Will Be My Ain True Love

**Author's Note:**

> The translation I wrote for the song this is based on can be found [here](http://thebisexualmandalorian.tumblr.com/post/182021064227) on my tumblr. You can listen to the original

X wears Sharps’ love for him in his armor.  

Written inside his chestplate, in Sharps’ scrawling hand, an old Mandalorian poem:

_Kemir adol kyr’werd_

_Naast’tracinya nu’bralir_

_Beroya’se ven’trattokor_

Sharps wants to believe that will protect his sol’runi.  He wants to have that measure of control to keep X safe, even as he orders him onto the field.  He wants to believe that he won’t lose him, that he won’t lose a part of his own heart like that, even though he knows that he can’t save him.

* * *

The losses are heavy when the battle finally ends.  They’ve _won_ , but it’s not a success for Sharps.  Not when near ninety percent of their men are wounded or dead, and the rest are scattered, slowly returning to base in ones and twos, leaning on each other, exhausted and defeated.  He greets each of them, sends the injured to the medics’ tent, and adds them to the list of _recovered_.  The list is growing, through returning men and through identified bodies, but there are still names missing.  

Sharps keeps whispering under his breath, the poem an incantation now, a replacement for the words that want to tear themselves from his smoke-dry throat: _Let him be alive, let him come back, let him be safe,_ **_please_ ** _._

He knows X is still alive.  He would _know_ if he wasn’t.  As the hours drag on and the list of missing slowly ticks down, Sharps’ heart sinks.

“If he isn’t back by tonight, we’re going to have to assume he’s gone,” his captain says.  He’s trying to be sympathetic, and the part of Sharps that’s a commanding officer knows it’s a hard call to make, but right now, it would be kinder to just put a bolt through his chestplate than to ask him to leave X behind.

“Yessir.”  

Sharps doesn’t know what he’s doing when he leaves the tent.  He just knows he has to find X, no matter what.

He finds Ruby first.  He knows he can trust the medic to keep a secret, and to do what he’s about to ask.  “If I’m not back by suns-up, mark me as a casualty,” he says quietly, because if he doesn’t find X, or if he _does_ , he isn’t coming back, “There’s a comm channel in my locker, tell- tell her I’m sorry.”

Ruby doesn’t say anything, just nods and knocks his gauntlet against his thigh.   _Understood_. 

* * *

_Kyrbej hokan'yc tal'galar ge'tal_

_Naast’tracinya juaan buy’ce_

_Baar'ur gai’ir kyrayc_

Sharps can still feel the ground shaking with cannonfire - he knows it’s all in his head, but it’s _there_ and he doesn’t know if he’s stopped shaking since the battle - and the ground looks like the planet itself is bleeding, the dark earth wet with blood that still hasn’t dried.  The screams of dying men still ring in his ears, and he tries to shake it all off, to focus on X.

The hours blur as he wanders; he finds more bodies and tags them to be gathered later, after identifying all he can.  The smoke and fog are thick in the forest, and it reeks with death. It feels like every description of _Haran_ his instructors had told them about, late at night when all the cadets should have been asleep, but instead gathered around the Mando’ade who wanted to pass along the old stories.  He’d imagined back then what _Haran_ would look like, but he’d never imagined anything like this.

The silence is the worst part.  Hearing his own breath and heartbeat in his ears, and nothing else.  No calls of animals, nothing _alive_.  Just the crushing silence that can’t drown out the memories of the battle.

In the silence, though, he hears footsteps ahead.  His blaster is in his hands when a figure limps out of the smoke and fog and shadows.

“Sharps?”

Just the sound of his voice nearly drops Sharps to his knees, but he catches X instead, steadying him as he stumbles.  “Cyare,” he whispers, his voice ragged, “ _Cyare_.”  He presses a hand to X’s chest, over his heart, over the incantation that brought his beloved back to him.

“I’m okay- I’m okay, are you-  You’re okay, right?”

Sharps’ voice shakes as much as his hands as he pulls X to his chest, unfazed by the way their armor _clacks_ together.  “Yeah, I’m okay.  Fuck, I thought-”

“You didn’t.  I’m here. I just- I got pinned down is all.  I’m okay.”

Sharps doesn’t say anything else, just buries his face in X’s shoulder.  “I had to look for you. We should get back, I told Ruby that if I wasn’t back by morning, I wasn’t coming back at all.”

“Di’kut,” X says fondly, and taps their buckets together.

“For you?  Always.”

 

_Ner’shi ven’solruni_

_Ner’shi ven’solruni_

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this song on repeat for three days. Help.


End file.
